Biography
A military pilot selected for the first cosmonaut corps. He was also a gifted painter, later capturing his experiences of space in numerous works. In 1975 he commanded Soyuz 19 during the historic docking with the American Apollo.
Cosmonaut / Astronaut
Alexei Leonov
oviet cosmonaut who on 18 March 1965 became the first human to step out of a spacecraft into open space. A decade later he commanded the Soviet side of the joint Apollo–Soyuz mission.
- Spaceflights
- 2
- Time in space
- ≈ 10 days
Missions
Spaceflights
VOS
Voskhod 2
On 18 March 1965 Voskhod 2 delivered the first human spacewalk: Alexei Leonov spent 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside the spacecraft. The return nearly ended in tragedy — a ballooned spacesuit, an automatic-system failure and an emergency landing in snowbound taiga hundreds of kilometres off target.
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Apollo–Soyuz
Apollo–Soyuz (ASTP) was the first joint Soviet–American crewed flight, on 15–24 July 1975. The American Apollo docked with the Soviet Soyuz 19 and Tom Stafford shook hands with Alexei Leonov — the first international docking and a symbolic end to the space race.
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Timeline
Career at a glance
- 1965Voskhod 218 March 1965
- 1975Apollo–Soyuz15 July 1975
Facts
Things you may not know
He was the first human in history to walk in open space — for 12 minutes and 9 seconds.
His spacesuit ballooned in the vacuum so much that he could not get back inside — he had to bleed off its pressure.
In 1975 he commanded the Soviet spacecraft on the first joint Apollo–Soyuz flight.
Crews
